Pregnant Girl, depicting Bernardine Coverley carrying Lucian Freud's child Bella, which is going up for auction and could sell for as much as £10million

One of the most famous paintings by a British artist is expected to fetch £10million at auction more than 50 years since it was created.

Pregnant Girl by Lucian Freud, which depicts his then-teenage lover Bernardine Coverley carrying their daughter Bella, will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s next month.

German-born Freud painted the portrait in a west London studio in the early 1960s after he fell in love with the former convent schoolgirl, who went on to mother two of his children.

Not much is known about the late artist’s relationship with Coverley, who later moved to Morocco with their daughters Bella and Esther, later depicted in film Hideous Kinky starring Kate Winslet.

But Bella, 54, now an internationally-acclaimed fashion designer, said her mother was very proud of the painting and shared a ‘happy time’ with Lucian.

She told The Sunday Telegraph: ‘I like that my mother was so clearly in my father's thoughts and gaze, that at this time she was really important to him.

‘She didn't talk about the painting but she was proud of it - I could tell by the tone of her voice when she first told me that it was of her pregnant with me in that picture.’

It comes as Freud has been accused of carrying out an assault on his friend David Litvinoff in the 1960s in a new book, Jumpin' Jack Flash, by Keiron Pim.

The book describes the attack in the Kensington flat, in which Litvinoff was tied to a chair and hung upside-down from a roof terrace, which was initially blamed on the Kray twins.

Bella Freud, left, pictured with her artist father Lucian, right, in 2008, three years before his death in 2011

But contemporaries of Freud and Litvinoff have alleged the artist was behind it after the pair fell out over a painting.

Freud was famous for having relationships with numerous women but is said to have remained friends with Coverley until their deaths just days apart in 2011.

Bella added: ‘I believe they got on incredibly well at first, my father was really keen on my mother but he still had relationships with other women. I think he was undoubtedly the love of her life even though she did things that he disapproved of, like taking us to live in Morocco.’

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Kate Winslet pictured in film Hideous Kinky, based on the story of Bernardine Coverley taking daughters Esther and Bella, fathered by Lucian Freud, to Morocco

She her mother felt ‘cherished’ by Freud after a difficult childhood, including being sent to convent school at age four, which she tried to run away from twice.

Bella said the couple met when Coverley was around 16 years old, and her mother was 17 when the portrait was painted.

Sotheby’s called the painting a ‘defining work on Freud’s oeuvre’ and estimate it could sell for as much as £10million on February 10.

PORTRAIT OF A THUG? DID LUCIAN FREUD ASSAULT FRIEND IN FLAT?

An author has suggested late artist Lucian Freud may have been responsible for a brutal attack on a man in London in the early 1960s.

David Litvinoff was attacked by two men in his flat in Kensington High Street and woke up to find himself naked, covered in blood and tied to a chair hanging upside down from a roof terrace railing.

The incident was originally blamed on the Kray twins, with whom Litvinoff allegedly had gambling debts, but Keiron Pim, author of a new book about Litvinoff, said many of his contemporaries believe Freud was behind it.

David Litvinoff, pictured, was left hanging upside down from a roof railing after being attacked

He told the Independent on Sunday: ‘To a good many people this was just an accepted fact about Lucian. If you mentioned Litvinoff to them they'd say, “You know Lucian had him hung upside down over Kensington High Street.”'

The book, pictured, goes on sale on January 28

Russian Alexander "Shura" Shihwarg, a close friend of Litvinoff who found him after the attack, also believed Freud was responsible for the attack because the pair had fallen out.

He told the Independent: ‘He [Litvinoff] told me he expected [his attackers] were cronies of Lucian's. I was horrified to see him - he was covered in blood.’

Freud and Litvinoff are said to have become friends in 1954 before the artist found out the latter had been passing himself off as Freud in bars and charging drinks to his account.

Although Mr Pim says Freud had a ‘strong urge’ to hit Litvinoff, he said his desire to paint him was stronger and Litvinoff ended up posing in Freud’s studio at least 30 times, with the result being Portrait of a Jew, re-named The Producer when it was unveiled at a gallery in Bond Street in 1958.

This apparently caused another argument between the pair, although Freud’s friend and biographer William Feaver claimed Freud ‘wasn’t an organiser of violence at all’ and only saw Litvinoff as an ‘irritant’.

Litvinoff died in 1975 after taking an overdose of sleeping pills, while Freud died in 2011 aged 88, with Archbishop Rowan Williams performing the ceremony at his private funeral.

Mr Pim’s book Jumpin’ Jack Flash is published on January 28 by Jonathan Cape.

The Kray twins, pictured, are long thought to be behind the attack on Litvinoff at the flat in Kensington